Each morning, the alarm in junior Mia Arena’s bedroom goes off. Within an hour, she showers, eats breakfast, and goes to school.

She has been doing this routine since the beginning of the school year.

Each day, without fail.

Perfect Attendance is not just something that “happens easily.” Many students feel that perfect attendance would impact the other students at the school, who would work hard to achieve that goal. 

Arena says that her perfect attendance helps her gain a sense of self-accomplishment. One reason why she might feel that accomplishment is because she wakes up early. She enjoys being at school and getting her work done:

 “I drive myself to school every morning,” Arena said. “I wake up early. I enjoy completing my work and feel accomplished when I leave my house and go to school. I just want to get my work done with school so I do not have to worry about stress with work or finals.”

Recently, the administration has given those high-attendance students a shout-out by displaying their names on hallway walls. It is unclear whether that incentive has made other students more likely to attend school.

However, Assistant Principal Amy Brown hopes it will convey that good attendance often means better academic performance.

“It helps students in multiple ways,” she said. “First, good attendance helps students keep up with assignments and understand what is being taught daily. For some classes, missing days means missing lessons in steps or scaffolded instruction that would help you succeed on future assignments or projects. 

Many people, she said, forget that grade level to grade level builds upon knowledge, as well. 

“So, if you miss weeks in Algebra 1,” Brown said, “you may not be as successful when you take Algebra 2 or Algebraic Reasoning.”

Perfect Attendance happens to people who try to gain that accomplishment. It doesn’t take “striving effort” to come to school. However, it is not that easy, especially if you are sick or have something that day that you can’t miss. 

“I just try to make sure that every day I get here and make school a priority,” said senior Tristan Henn. “Since if you take school seriously, it can give you a positive, impactful future.”

 Henn doesn’t strive for school because it is just something that happens.

“I just try and do my best to be here every day, take school seriously, treat it as a huge responsibility.”

Seniority plays into perfect attendance, Henns said, depending on how your effort for perfect attendance goes. 

“As a senior, it is important to show up and show out to school because it makes me seem like a good example for the lowerclassmen,” Henn said.  “Throughout my high school experience, I haven’t really just missed school. I have always tried to put effort and discipline into coming to school every day and making it seem like you truly want to be there and put effort.”

Most importantly, school attendance is not that big of a deal after high school. Careers hardly pay attention to the “perfect attendance” and “striving effort” concept because when students hardly attend school, they still have outstanding grades. 

Colleges and careers won’t notice “when you were there.” They would pay attention to “what you did when you showed up and showed out.” 

Perfect Attendance is just a “label” regarding how people see life and how people put pressure on the attendance label. More importantly, many people and students know when the accomplishments were made, not the dedication to how and why they were made. 

Students we interviewed said don’t worry your whole life about one issue that never got resolved in high school, that you will be fine if you aren’t there every day. 

Yet Brown said good attendance also helps in building and maintaining relationships with staff and fellow students. 

“Teachers and staff members may be able to assist students in tutoring, future career planning or even provide accurate and helpful letters of recommendations,” she said. “If a student applies for a scholarship, most will want a letter of recommendation from a teacher. It is hard for a staff member to write a good letter if a student is never present and doesn’t put in the time to build that relationship.”

 Brown also points out how students thrive when happy with their friends. Coming to school provides the most time to see friends and build those memories and bonds. 

“Some of us build such close relationships with our peers that we marry them or keep in touch with them 20 years later,” she said. “You are at school for a minimum of 8 hours, so why not make some friends and enjoy your time here? Put in the time and effort to build upon your dreams and relationships.”